ars, and drafted a plan of campaign for
the Army of Italy, which, later on, was to bear him to fortune.
Probably the geographical insight which it displayed may have led to
his appointment (August 20th, 1795) to the topographical bureau of the
Committee of Public Safety. His first thought on hearing of this
important advancement was that it opened up an opportunity for
proceeding to Turkey to organize the artillery of the Sultan; and in a
few days he sent in a formal request to that effect--the first
tangible proof of that yearning after the Orient which haunted him all
through life. But, while straining his gaze eastwards, he experienced
a sharp rebuff. The Committee was on the point of granting his
request, when an examination of his recent conduct proved him guilty
of a breach of discipline in not proceeding to his Vendean command. On
the very day when one department of the Committee empowered him to
proceed to Constantinople, the Central Committee erased his name from
the list of general officers (September 15th).

This time the blow seemed fatal. But Fortune appeared to compass his
falls only in order that he might the more brilliantly tower aloft.
Within three weeks he was hailed as the saviour of the new republican
constitution. The cause of this almost magical change in his prospects
is to be sought in the political unrest of France, to which we must
now briefly advert.

All through this summer of 1795 there were conflicts between Jacobins
and royalists. In the south the latter party had signally avenged
itself for the agonies of the preceding years, and the ardour of the
French temperament seemed about to drive that hapless people from the
"Red Terror" to a veritable "White Terror," when two disasters checked
the course of the reaction. An attempt of a large force of emigrant
French nobles, backed up by British money and ships, to rouse Brittany
against the Convention was utterly crushed by the able young Hoche;
and nearly seven hundred prisoners were afterwards shot down in cold
blood (July). Shortly before this blow, the little prince styled Louis
XVII. succumbed to the brutal treatment of his gaolers at the Temple
in Paris; and the hopes of the royalists now rested on the unpopular
Comte de Provence. Nevertheless, the political outlook in the summer
of 1795 was not reassuring to the republicans; and the Commission of
Eleven, empowered by the Convention to draft new organic laws, drew up
an instrument of go